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Invictus Gaming Is Your 2018 League of Legends World Champion

POSTED BY Martin Patino ON November 7, 2018

The grand finals of the 2018 League of Legends World Championship concluded faster than many hoped as China’s Invictus Gaming took down Europe’s Fnatic in a dominating 3-0 sweep, garnering the Summoner’s Cup and the lion’s share of the tournament’s prize pool.

Invictus Gaming, the second of two teams from China’s LPL, started out their championship run strong as they finished the group stage 5-1 and tied with Fnatic for the top spot of their group. The would-be champions would be them move on to defeat Korea’s first seed and the team expected to win the championship, KT Rolster, in a drawn out yet ultimately successful 3-2 run.

The team’s momentum from their victory against KT Rolster continued on throughout the rest of the main event as they were able to sweep their semi-finals opponent G2 Esports 3-0 before doing the same with Fnatic in the grand finals.

The grand finals felt incredibly one-sided as IG streamrolled through Fnatic during the first two games, the first ending with a score of 21-6 and the second at 22-7. And while the score was a bit closer by the end of the third game, the sweep was already assured. Invictus Gaming is now the first LPL team to win Worlds, breaking Korea’s long-standing hold on the title since 2013.

While IG ultimately won the Summoner’s Cup, this year’s Worlds saw some of the best performances from western teams in years, showing that both NA and EU have slowly closed the gap between the west and east. Some examples include G2 Esports eliminating China’s top seed Royal Never Give Up and Cloud 9 defeating Korea’s second seed Afreeca Freecs.

With the way this year’s Worlds went, next season is going to be incredibly exciting now that Korea’s iron grip on the world championship has been loosened. It’s going to great to see whether the west continues its rise or will Korea bounce back to reclaim the Summoner’s Cup.